Hello and welcome to News Hour live from the BBC World Service in London I'm

Rebecca Kresby and we have a very busy program for you today lots of breaking news in the past

couple of hours the polls in the European Parliament elections are due to close across

all 27 member states within the next hour as well, so we're watching that.

Populist and far right parties are expected to do pretty well.

In fact in France, even before the results are announced, President Macron has just called a

snap general election as Marine Le Pen's party looks as if it's done well.

We're going to come to that soon.

But first, let's begin with the political

news from Israel this evening, breaking in the past couple of hours. The Israeli

War cabinet minister Benny Gantz has quit the government. He's been critical of

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the war in Gaza for some time. Today he

said Mr Netanyahu was blocking real success in the conflict against Hamas, widely considered a terror

organization by many Western states, Mr Gantz also called for a new date for a new general election. The sari,

Netaniya, my name

and it had been

unfortunately Mr Netignyahu is preventing us from approaching

true victory, which is the justification for the painful ongoing crisis.

And this is why we quit the National Unity Government today with a heavy heart, yet we feel

it is the right decision. We are now in the midst of a campaign that will

impact the fate of Israel for generations ahead.

Well until his resignation Mr Gants, who's a retired Army general, had been a member of Israel's key

...